The Internet is a rapidly developing source of weather related information. Consumers of weather information generally fall into three categories: weather enthusiasts who genuinely have an interest in weather itself, weather planners who use weather information in planning their activities and travel, and consumers who view weather as a commodity. The weather sites on the Internet are generally focused on providing weather information and have limited content for the weather planners or enthusiasts.
Furthermore, consumers generally have to go through several layers of navigation before reaching weather information that is useful for planning purposes. The weather information that is available for planning purposes is generally a subset of weather information that may be of interest for planning an event or activity. Some of the weather sites are therefore cumbersome and complicated to use for weather planning purposes. For a more in depth explanation of the deficiencies of weather information for weather planning purposes see U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/766,295 to Ryan, et al. entitled “Weather Information Delivery Systems and Methods Providing Planning Functionality And Navigation Tools” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/707,335 entitled “Targeted Weather Information Delivery Systems and Methods,” both incorporated herein by this reference.
A need exists for weather sites that can provide better services to the weather enthusiasts and weather planners and, in particular, merge weather information and other content with activities-based content. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/766,295 to Ryan (“the Ryan application”) has partially addressed this concern by presenting navigation and planning functionality that ties weather information to specific activities, such as golf at a particular course or weather conditions for an outdoor sporting event. The Ryan application provides a What/Where search tool that consumers can use to plan a certain activity at a certain location. As described, if a consumer is interested in playing golf in Abilene, Tex., for example, the consumer can search using “Abilene, Tex.” (the where) and “plan for golf” (the what) and receive golf planning information such as weather and other information specific to golfing in Abilene, such as a list of golf courses near Abilene, current observations at those courses, distance of the golf courses from the geographical location of interest, cost of the courses, availability at the courses, and level of difficulty.
The Ryan application also describes the use of an activity index page such as a golf index page. The golf index is described as “a measure of a set of weather conditions that influence the game of golf, such as temperature, humidity, lightning conditions, wind conditions, and precipitation.” This allows consumers to more easily plan their activities by giving consumers the weather information tightly integrated with golf information.
In spite of the many uses and benefits of the weather-based activity planning tools described in Ryan, there continues to be a need for additional and more powerful weather-based activity planning functionality. Specifically, consumers desire a tool that can help them choose from among different activities. Consumers may not know what activities are available in a given area. Current systems also do not allow users to conveniently and easily compare activities. For example, a consumer must manually compare the results of a golf index with a fishing index to determine on a particular day which activity is favored by the current or forecasted weather conditions. Furthermore, there is a need for a system which can utilize information about a user, such as activity preferences and financial preferences and provide information and suggestions on activities.